The conventional wisdom that Jaguars fans want the team to draft former Florida quarterback Tim Tebow might not be accurate.

During the team’s first telephone Fan Forum with general manager Gene Smith on Tuesday night, an event limited to season-ticket holders, fans were asked if the team should draft Tebow.

Of the 800 fans who voted by phone, the answer was no by a 55 percent to 45 percent margin.

Vic Ketchman, the senior editor of jaguars.com who gave the fans’ questions to Smith, said he was “stunned” by the result. In the past, Ketchman has suggested that Tebow would have a better future in the NFL as a tight end than as a quarterback.

The Fan Forum was designed to promote the selling of season tickets and gave the fans a chance to ask Smith questions about the team.

Not surprisingly, the first question was about when Smith thought Tebow would be drafted.

Smith called it a great question, but he didn’t really answer it. Smith said draft boards can vary from team to team.

“I can’t give an answer to that,” Smith said.

When Ketchman asked if there was a chance the Jaguars would draft Tebow, Smith said he didn’t have a crystal ball.

“I’m not going to comment on where he’s going to be drafted,” Smith said.

Despite his success at Florida, there have been a lot of questions raised about Tebow’s ability to make it in the NFL as a quarterback because of his throwing motion and a poor showing in the Senior Bowl.

Smith seemed to indicate he doesn’t expect to draft a quarterback with the 10th pick of the first round when he said it wouldn’t be easy for a rookie quarterback to come in and be better than David Garrard and backup Luke McCown.

Because teams don’t usually draft a quarterback in the first round to come in as No. 3 at the spot, Smith might figure a quarterback isn’t likely to be the Jaguars’ first-round choice.

As far as drafting a quarterback at some point, Smith said, “I would always look for a quarterback we could develop, but I’m not going to force it. Is it a position we’ll look at in the draft? Yes, it is.”

He also suggested this wasn’t a vintage crop of quarterbacks, saying it’s been stronger in past years.

Smith gave Garrard a good review.

“He’s persevered through a lot here,” Smith said. “He has a physical skill set that doesn’t limit the play-calling. He’s very durable, has tremendous toughness and is a top competitor out on the football field. The best is yet to come.”

Smith suggested that the Jaguars have to get a better team around Garrard.

“It’s a team game, and it takes a lot of people working together,” Smith said.

He did add that Garrard understands that as a quarterback and a team leader, he needs to be more vocal and a little bit more assertive.

Smith said the Jaguars had no other free-agent visits currently planned after targeting special-teams player Kassim Osgood and defensive end Aaron Kampman and signing them both. Smith said he’ll continue to try to build through the draft and use free agency as a supplement.

Smith said the free-agent signings wouldn’t change the Jaguars’ strategy of taking the best player available in the draft.

He suggested he wants to trade down in the first round to get more picks.

“My mind-set is to acquire picks. If we’re able to do that, I’ll have a smile on my face,” Smith said.

After Smith took questions for more than 45 minutes, Tim Connolly, who runs their ticketing department, gave an update on the ticket sales. He said the Jaguars have sold 5,000 new season tickets so far, compared to 400 at this time last year, and gave a lot of the credit to the buzz created by Touchdown Jacksonville, the civic group spearheading the ticket-selling campaign.

Connolly said about 35 percent of the 27,000 season tickets have been renewed, but he said most of the fans renew at the last minute. The renewal deadline is March 19.

The Jaguars continue to hold numerous events promoting ticket sales.

At noon Thursday, Jaguars owner Wayne Weaver and Garrard will be at a rally at Hemming Plaza.

The Jaguars have several events scheduled for this month, including a “Jag Madness Party” on March 18 at the East Touchdown Cub, an invitation-only event for season-ticket holders. It reached capacity in 24 hours, and the Jaguars have reserved a limited number of tickets for the general public.

That's because most people on Jax.com don't own season tickets. It's simple logic. Did they teach that at Fletcher? It's the same with politics, you can't really have a say in what you want if you didn't vote in the elections.

There you see it, from the mouths of the people who actually have invested in this team. No. It's too bad really, if some of you guys actually bought tickets in the first place, we wouldn't even be having this conversation.

Very good posting dafish. I personally have a lot of respect for Tim Tebow but right now, I feel that most Jaguars fans want a winning team and we should leave it up to Gene Smith to make the right decision for our franchise. From the games that we had seen from last season, it seems that we can use a lot of upgrades on the defense side so I think that's where Gene Smith will focus his attention on. Gene Smith's job is to make the best decision for the Jaguars to make us an elite team again with or without Tim Tebow.